Aryanhwy's Calligraphy and Illumination

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Queen's Tea invitations

The Queen of Drachenwald is hosting a Queen's Tea at Pennsic 2009, for which she needed invitations to all the queens in the Known World that would be in attendance. I did 10, and Lady Genevieve did 7. When I met up with Trinite en route from the International Medieval Congress in Leeds to Störtebeker's Sons in Two Seas, she introduced me to pen work and we added flourishes to the invitations I'd done.

Queen of the Outlands

Queen of Calontir

Queen of Gleann Abhann

Queen of the Middle

Queen of the West

Queen of Northshield

Queen of the East

Queen of Lochac

Queen of Trimaris

Queen of Meridies

Since the text was the same, once I did one copy and got settled into the hand, the rest went really quickly -- by the time I reached the end, it took more time to tick and rule the guidelines than it did to do the lettering itself!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

PCS for Margarite the Magpie

A Hiberno-Saxon style PCS. The initial was done by someone else (I don't know); Trinite had it in her pile of scroll-blanks and I saw it and said "ooh, let me!" I really enjoy the Celtic/Anglo-Saxon style illumination, and haven't had enough opportunities to do it yet. The choice of hand and the gold and black letters with red dots at the top were inspired by plate 5 of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Painting, by Carl Nordenfalk, fol. 86 of the Book of Darrow, The Beginning of the Gospel of Saint Mark.

Unfortunately, I made two lettering mistakes -- I started writing "gree..." instead of "gentles", and I spelled "kingdom", "kingdmo". I did my best to write the right letters over and then scrape out the wrong ink, but you can still tell that I screwed up (and how). Oh well. Mistakes are period.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Dragon's Bowle for Arenvald von Hagenburg

Scroll	Exemplar

	f1r of Codex Admontensis 139, a 13th-century MS

The text is adapted from a 16th century Swedish grant of arms, translated into English by Frithiof Sigvardsson Skägge, available at http://www.geocities.com/sven_noren/Patents/joka-eng.html. The scroll was done June 11-13.

Dragon's Bowle for Signe Scriffuerska

Scroll	Exemplar

	The Manesse Codex, 342v

I should have made the roses bigger. The three bees are a reference to the recipient's device, Gules, three bees Or.

The text is based on the Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman, available at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/courtier/courtier.html#chief, part of Sir Thomas Hoby's English translation of the Book of the Courtier, 1561. (This text is not longer available at this URL, but it can also be found here.

The scroll took two days, Jun. 12 and 13.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Four initials

A friend was putting together a little book and she wanted some extra decorative touches when she printed it, so I painted some capitals for her. These are based on three capitals from Codex Admontensis 139, 13th C, and were done Jun 4 and 6:

f.1r
f.1r
f.48v
f.48v
(there was no B in the MS, so I had to design my own)

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Company of Merit for Martial Prowess for Vitus Polonius

This was calligraphed the day of the event. The illumination is by Trinite Ducalon. The text reads:

Greetings unto all gentles from Dafydd and Chiara viceroy and vicereine of Insulae Draconis. With the blessings of Marcus and Cecilia king and queen of Drachenwald we invite Vitus Polonius into the company of merit for prowess in the arts martial. XXX May a.s. XLIV.

Company of Merit for Artisans and Scholars for Robert of Canterbury

This was combat scribing done the day of the event. The illumination was by Trinite Ducalon. The text reads:

Let it be reported in all the lands far and wide that we, Dafydd and Chiara, viceroy and vicereine of Insula Draconis, with the blessing of Marcus and Cecilia, king and queen of Drachenwald, hereby invite Robert of Canterbury into our company of merit for the arts and sciences. Given this xxxth day of May, anno societatis xliv.